It got kind of windy here last night…

I guess the local folks were calling the winds \”gusty\” to perhaps 41MPH or so, but I think it was windier than that. In any event, a couple of trees came down at the old hacienda here,

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but luckily with little damage. Unfortunately I can\’t say \”no damage\”. Some siding was dented (aluminum…) and some edging was ripped loose and bangs around a bit in the wind.

The worst casualties, though were two of my HF antennas (the \”big ones\” that I use to communicate to places like Asiatic Russia, Australia, and other far-away places. The 40-meter \”horizontal loop\” antenna, essentially a 140-foot loop of copper wire strung around the house at about 35 feet was supported on one corner by one of the fallen trees. A good bit of luck is that the Dacron line holding the antenna was weaker than the antenna wire, so the antenna itself is intact – just not up at 35 feet where it\’s supposed to be. The 80-meter \”dipole\” antenna, which used to run along the edge of the lot, where the trees were, fell victim to the tree as well. Neither the copper wire nor the Dacron supporting rope parted, though, but the Dacron was pulled pretty tight, and I had to cut it – there was no way to untie it!

Another stroke of luck is that the second tree was long enough, and still sturdy enough, that it managed to support its Lose Weight Exercise and not tear down the telephone and cable TV lines. We could probably have gotten by without the cable TV for a couple of days, but the telephone line brings DSL, the lifeblood of our email – not to mention the Internet link for my Packet Radio BBS. I managed to cut through that tree trunk (only about 4\” thick at that point) with my pole saw, preventing further damage if the tree were to break more.

I do need to get a \”tree guy\” out here to cut up the rest of the mess, and take down the remaining dead tree. It\’s going to fall down soon, and I won\’t, very likely, be this lucky next time!